Manufacturing resource planning (MRP II) is defined by APICS as a method for the effective planning of all resources of a manufacturing company. Ideally, it addresses operational planning in units, financial planning, and has a simulation capability to answer “what-if” questions and extension of closed-loop MRP (Wolsey, Laurence. (2006). Production Planning by Mixed Integer Programming. Springer. ISBN 978-0-387-29959-4).

This is not exclusively a software function, but a marriage of people skills, dedication to data base accuracy, and computer resources. It is a total company management concept for using human resources more productively. Key functions and features of MRP II are: